Comments Off on Have You Gone Bankrupt? Here is How You Can Rebuild Your Credit

Do you declare a death sentence to your credit card score when you file for Chapter 13 or Chapter 7 bankruptcy? No, you do not! You can still rebuild your credit card score. Even though it may look like a daunting and impossible task, especially when you look at your credit card score after a bankruptcy filing, know that it is not impossible to restore it.

How Badly Does Bankruptcy Affect Your Credit Card Score?

Lenders and banks analyze a person’s credit card history to decide if they qualify for a loan and the type of interest rate they should set if they decide to provide them with one.

Here is an example on how bankruptcy plummets your credit card score:

If your credit card score was 780 before you filed for bankruptcy, after it, your credit card score will be between 540 and 550. If your credit card score was 670, it will be between 140 and 180 after bankruptcy filing. For lenders, a bad credit card history marked with bankruptcy is a red flag. Does that mean you will never be able to secure a loan?

You can take the following steps to fix your credit card history:

1. Examine Your Current Credit Card History

You can obtain access to free credit card reports from various sites. If you do not know what you are doing, you can visit an accountant or someone with the expertise of analyzing credit card history. You need to examine your credit card report for inaccuracies. If you find any, counter them and correct them.

2. Examine Your Credit Card Score

You can obtain access to your credit card scores from the internet. You should keep a record of your credit card score each month. Do not look at several types of scores to track, but look at the same credit card score each month. You need to know which type of score your lenders will look at when you apply for a loan, thus it is important to track your score and clean your credit card reports.

3. Provide Assurances to Lenders

Lenders will see you as a risk, a liability— a person they cannot trust to repay them in full. To assure them that you are not a risk and they should invest in you, you need to provide them with additional assurances. Here are a few ways you can use to assure your lenders about your ability to repay them:

Secure Loan– Credit card unions and community banks are two types of entities that can provide you with a secured loan.

Deposit money, but cannot access it

Loaned money is placed in a savings account and released once the required payments are made

Secure Credit Card– The deposit you pay backs up the card and limit is the amount you paid.

Co-signed Loan or Credit Card– Ask a family member or friend with a good credit card history to become your co-signer

Authorized User– Ask someone to make you an authorized user, but ensure the credit bureaus receive your payment activity

The financial market in the United Kingdom has hit a hurricane after the recent geo-political alterations. Even if that is disregarded, there are several things that threaten the investments of people throughout the year.

Such threats include political uncertainty, fragility of the financial markets, cyber risks and many more. In order to help you protect your investments from such threats, we have summoned up a list of strategies.

Release the unsystematic risks

There are two main categories of risk, the systematic and the unsystematic. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do to erase the systematic risk but you can surely eliminate the latter with a few tricks. To start off, it is better to go for a portfolio that includes a large number of stocks. This will help in reducing the amount of unsystematic risks in your investment.

Return on Capital

A great way to protect your investment is to opt for ‘safe investments’. Whether it is income annuities or cash, both will help provide safety for your investment. However, the protection of your investment in this case will be short-term.

By owning a broader and diversified portfolio in a particular asset class, the investors consequently protect their investments and reduce the otherwise growing unsystematic risk.

Stop losses

Stop losses is one of the best ways to secure your investment. It provides protection against the rapid changes that might occur in the financial market. Although it helps in this regard, there is ample need to plan out the stop losses before you go through with your investment strategy. It must be noted that the key point here is to stop the small temporary losses from turning into big permanent ones.

Principal-Protected Notes

One of the several ways to have your principal amount protected is to go for Equity Participation or Principal Protection Notes. These notes are similar to bonds because they secure your principal, provided that you hold the notes to their maturity. Investors that are reluctant to taking risks are bound to find the Principal Protected Notes quite attractive. However, you must not jump into it right away. It is better if you first find out the financial position of the bank you are buying these from, to further secure your investment in them.

Limit the Exposure

It is sometimes wise to limit your exposure in the financial market and step back on the level of risk you are taking. If you have invested somewhere, that does not mean you are bound to stick to it, provided it binds you legally. Whenever there is a lot of instability in the market, you should consider repositioning some part of your investments towards a lesser risky area, and lessen your exposure to the volatility of the market.

There are a lot of ways you can protect you investments in the market. The key here is to educate yourself with the possibilities of what can be done with those investments.

Bad credit is no longer stopping people from taking out mortgages. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as bad credit. If one lender does not offer a mortgage loan to a person, there is always another lender right around the corner.

Though a bad credit mortgage does not stop lenders to give out loans but they do so with a higher interest rate and fees. Usually after a time, the bad credit slowly repairs and the person can apply for a lower rate mortgage.

Following are some of the companies that offer mortgage loans even on bad credit history:

Founded in 1846, Nationwide is the largest building society that houses the bank Nationwide. A financial institution based in London, Nationwide won the best savings and mortgage provider in January 2016.

The company offers two types of mortgages:

Fixed Rate – 1.49%

Tracker – 1.34%

Nationwide has the following three steps on entering mortgage process:

Processing the application: Once the mortgage form and other documents are submitted by a person, nationwide takes 48 hours to process it

Property Valuation: The property of the person is then valued, which usually takes 2 weeks

Receiving Offer: The bank gives the person a mortgage offer, which the person can either reject or accept

Founded in 1872, Platform is the trading name of UK’s biggest lending trader: The Co-operative Bank. The company has a motto that they lend mortgage money to nine out of ten fist time buyers.

The company offers two types of mortgages:

Fixed Rate – 1.24%

Tracker – 2.49%

Following are the steps to apply for a mortgage loan at Platform:

The company provides an advisor to asses a person’s situation and gives him/her mortgage payment options

Personal circumstances, income and expenditure are taken in to account

Property is evaluated

An amount is fixed according to the condition of the property

Final application with documents is processed

The company advisor gives you details on how to maintain your repayment schedule

Even though a bad credit rate does not matter in order to apply for a mortgage loan, a good credit history will go a far way in getting you an even better deal. You can visit Quiddicompare and compare the different interest rates offered by banks in UK.

Comments Off on Who can be a Guarantor and What Are Their Obligations?

People who are thinking of obtaining a guarantor loan must first find someone who will be willing to take on the responsibilities and the risks associated with becoming a guarantor. The person who is taking out a guarantor loan places a huge burden on the shoulders of a guarantor.

In the event they default on their payments and flee, the guarantor will become responsible for their actions and will have to repay their debt in full. If you are seriously thinking of taking this step, you need to select someone who you know trusts you not to default or flee.

Who Can Become Your Guarantor?

Some lenders give special preferences to guarantors who own their homes, as that cements their ability to pay the loan if you bail. They tend to give you a loan up to £7500 of the guarantor owns a home and up to £5000 if the guarantor stays in a rented home.

Before you ask anyone to become your guarantor, you need to inform them of their responsibilities and obligations so nothing is left hidden, but is all out in the open for them to make a well informed decision on whether they want to become your guarantor or not.

The Guarantor‘s Responsibilities

When someone agrees to financially support a relative or friend in need, it is considered a thoughtful act. By agreeing to become a guarantor, they are agreeing to repay the lender in the event you default on your repayments.

The lender will come after the guarantor to make them repay the entire amount owed in full. It is unlikely for the lender to take legal action, as most of time; the guarantor has the money to repay the lender. In the event they sue the guarantor, they can take legal action of their own by filing a lawsuit against you, the borrower.

The Guarantor’s Obligations

The guarantor is obligated to repay the loan repayments if the borrower defaults. They will have to repay the entire amount with interest.

Can the Guarantor Avoid Paying the Lender?

The guarantor can make the claim of not understanding the terms of the agreement, but success in winning the case in court is unlikely. Since the guarantor has signed an agreement, they will have no choice, but to repay the lender.

What Can the Guarantor Do?

Guarantors should consult with their lawyers about the terms and conditions of the agreement and on whether they should go forward with becoming a guarantor for their friend or family member.

Both the borrower and the guarantor should have a mutual understanding based on trust. If their trust between both parties and the guarantor knows the borrower will not break their trust, they should have no qualms of signing the contract to become their guarantor.

Credit cards usually have bad reputation, but it’s not because credit cards are bad for you, it’s because people have a bad habit of overspending and being irresponsible. Credit cards can be either a gift or a curse, but it all depends on the person who is using them. By having a credit card, you may feel like you can buy anything, but in reality, you can’t. A good thing about credit card is that you have your money secured and in a way, have it with you at all times, you can even go into minus and spend more than you’ve earned this month, but when you’re doing so, you’re getting a credit card debt.

The reason why some people hate credit cards is because they got way too deep into a credit card debt and they didn’t know how to get out. They felt like they were using someone else’s money, and just like that they’ve gotten into a huge trouble. The interest will pile on, the same as if you’ve taken a loan from a bank, so if you can’t pay what you spent in the upcoming month, you will have a problem.But if you are responsible and spend responsibly, you won’t have any problems, furthermore, you will have a lot of benefits.

First of all, having a credit card is great because you will be able to monitor all your spending. All you will have to go is go to a website and download for free every purchase you’ve made for the desired month. Like this you will be able to see where to cut off and how to actually save money by knowing what not to buy next time. Impulsive purchases usually cost the most, so make sure you don’t do that.

But what other benefits, like we’ve mentioned above?

Well, with credit cards, you will be able to earn money as well. There are these hidden benefits a small number of people know about which will in fact save you a lot of money.

First of all, you will get an extended

warranty automatically of up to 1 year. This means that you won’t need to buy extra warranties at Best Buy.

The next feature you might be looking forward to is that for every rental car you’re getting a free insurance and also collision insurance. If you’re frequently renting a car don’t buy extra insurance because you already have one through your credit card, this way you will be able to save a lot of money. And lastly, but certainly not the least, whenever you cancel your holiday, you will get reimbursed by your credit card company, which means you will have a trip-cancellation insurance.

Imagine how much money you would have lost if you paid everything for a holiday and haven’t gone. Thousands of dollars. Now, you can simply call your credit card company, explain the situation and you will save all the money you almost got left without.

There are three types of credit cards, revolving cards, installment cards and those for delayed payment ( usually one month).
Revolving credit cards are those which allows the owner to pay some percent of total debt monthly. All credit cards are usually based on some sort of revolving credit. The client pays minimal monthly debt percentage, and the remaining debt is subjected to bank interest. Revolving card often offers the possibility of paying shopping bill in several monthly installments, without the interest and only in some specified retail stores that has the contract with client’s bank. There are also revolving cards that are included in some purchases, which means that you get it if you buy, for instance, TV set, and the seller offers you to pay with revolving credit card provided by the bank that have the contract with the retail store. In that case, the amount on revolving card would be the price of TV set, and it is your credit limit since. This way, you will get the revolving card without much formalities, and there won’t be any instruments of securing needed.

Usual minimal percentage of monthly payment is 5%, but if you demand, in some banks you can determine higher minimal of 10%, 20% or 30% for your monthly payment. Thereby, monthly installment can not be less than a certain fixed amount. Monthly charge is always calculated on the same date of month, depending on the contract you have made with the bank.There is no restrictions about paying, so if you want you can pay more than calculated amount, or even to repay all debt at once. In such case, you will even get more favorable interest.

There are two ways of paying the debit, and it depends on the card type and the bank code. First way of payment includes commission, fee and interest, and of course the payment of things you have bought using installment model of payment. So when you make the shopping of 300$ spitted on three installments, you will be ought to pay three months the amount of 100$, including three commissions, fees and interests for each month. Another model of payment includes all that debts in one, so you need to pay only 5% ( or other minimal, depends on contract) of all debt, and all remaining debt is next amount that counts in next month interest.

Some credit cards includes payments using installments only. Those are so called installment cards. This time the bank divides the amount you have spent in agreed number of installments, usually 3-60. First installment must be payed on the day of shopping, and all other installments must be payed same date on upcoming months, plus interest of the bank. Some banks restricts number of transactions that can be done using this type of card. If the bank has the contract with retail object, there is also possibility of baying goods using installment payment, even without interest. Installment cards offers same conditions for early payment and credit limits as the revolving cards, that is explained before in this article.

There are also credit cards that made the entire debt in one month paid in a certain date in the next month, with appropriate interest. The period between the two methods may be longer than one month, for instance, on every 45 days.

Finance is one very delicate subject – especially when it’s about the paying rent, buying a house or buying a boat for example. You need money but you don’t have it! That is why people invented payday loans, which can be very helpful. On your following payday, the business cashes the check you have written and your loan is paid in full. This seems like a great idea – helping people get to their next paycheck by lending them a few dollars in the meantime. What is the problem? The problem is that few people realize just how expensive it can be to borrow money in this manner. The interest rates offered by the payday lenders can be very high, so be aware!

The interest rates that payday loan stores are permitted to charge can be different in different states, but a typical rate for a two-week loan would be 15-17%. That
doesn’t seem like much if you are borrowing $100 and writing a check for $115; but the annual interest rate on such a loan is actually 390%, which makes it perhaps the most expensive way to borrow money. The joke in the industry is that it would actually be cheaper to borrow from a loan shark than from one of these legitimate businesses.

The lenders defend these rates, pointing out that such costs are necessary to protect their business overhead and high default rate. That may be true, but many borrowers are blue collar workers who live from paycheck to paycheck. It is easy to fall into the trap of repeatedly using such loans, and the interest adds up in a hurry, turning a convenience into a nightmare. Someone who is short this week may also be short in two weeks, and a loan of a few hundred dollars can quickly turn into a debt of a few thousand dollars, especially when late fees and bounced check fees are added to the total. More than a few borrowers at such businesses have had to resort to personal bankruptcy in order to get out from under their mountain of payday loan debt.

Even more egregious is the fact that such loan stores are frequently located near military bases. Our military personnel aren’t well paid and several members of Congress are not pleased that these predatory businesses are setting up shop for the purpose of exploiting our men and women in uniform. Several states have already passed laws that place limits on the interest rates that such businesses may charge and others will undoubtedly follow. A better alternative for anyone with a short term cash shortage would be to take out a credit card loan or a home equity line of credit instead. There is usually a small fee associated with such a loan, but the interest rates, which are probably no more than 30%, are far more reasonable than the 400% per year charged by the payday lender.

Anyone considering a payday loan should read the terms of the agreement carefully. Otherwise, that short term loan could haunt you for years.

Murky Payday Loan Feesctvnews.caPosted onMay 12, 2012byctvnews.caClick hereto watch the videoA confusing fee is making things murky for those who use payday loan companies.The companies lend consumers up to $1500 for two months or less and charge a strictly regulated fee.Instaloans is the payday len...